A young boy watches people hula-hoop along Telegraph Avenue during the First Friday event after a shooting near last month's street festival killed one person and injured three others.

Photo: Lacy Atkins, The Chronicle

A young boy watches people hula-hoop along Telegraph Avenue during...

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Security guard Chaney Timms, center, greets people as he patrols Telegraph Avenue duirng the First Friday event, Friday March 1, 2013, in Oakland, Calif. The mood is different said some spectators in the wake of shooting during last month's event leaving one person dead.

Many Oaklanders came, they said, to send a message just by being there.

"I see this festival as a complex reflection of the city we live in," said Ariel Luckey, 33, a poet, playwright and lifelong Oaklander. Of the art and performances on display, he said, "I would hate to see the violence put an end to that and shut down the connections happening at this festival."

Coordinators of what has been a loosely organized gathering mobilized to bring greater order this month. So had many residents, business owners and city officials, who wanted to preserve the event that symbolizes and helps fuel Oakland's urban renaissance.

They imposed a series of rules: Street closures were cut in half to five blocks; music was toned down; things had to wrap up at 9 p.m., an hour earlier than last time; and city leaders pledged a crackdown on public drinking.

Most of those rules were easily enforced. The public drinking? Not so much.

Customers flowed out of Saigon Market on Telegraph Avenue with liquor in brown paper bags. Ian McCann stood outside drinking a can of Olde English 800 beer. Informed of the new rules, he said, "That's good to know. I was always told that if it's in a brown paper bag, they won't mess with you."

Sgt. Christopher Bolton, a police spokesmen, said officers were looking to defuse any confrontations. So they were more likely to ask people to stop drinking.

"We're not looking to make First Fridays an enforcement action," he said. "We're looking to make it a safe and thriving environment."

Last month's shooting, in which three people were wounded and one killed, didn't scare McCann in the slightest. In the years he's been coming, he said, the violence was an aberration. But he always comes prepared.

"It just comes with the territory," said McCann, 33, of San Francisco. "It's Oakland. Some of the inner-city turmoil is going to roll over."

Some who showed up saw last month's shooting as an opportunity. These artists and performers said they wanted the event to be safe but also wanted to recognize the value of human life throughout the city, including the East and West Oakland neighborhoods where victims are less recognized.

Many of these artists wore green-and-white, glow-in-the-dark T-shirts emblazoned with the words "Respect Our City." They used various stages to sing or perform spoken word messages of peace. They held moments of silence to mark the killings in the city.

"It's a statement to remind everyone that Oakland is alive, healthy, thriving and creative," said Takiyah Suhail, a singer. "It's not dead."

Mayor Jean Quan and her husband, Floyd Huen, wore "Respect Our City" shirts, as she checked on some galleries, which she said had been told not to sell beer.

At Concrete X Tarr gallery at 24th Street and Telegraph Avenue, a man gave out beer in a cup for "$5 donations." No identifications were being checked.

"We asked everybody to not sell beer tonight," Quan told the man. "If you sell beer, even temporarily, you have to have a license."

The man, who declined to identify himself, said he thought the rules only meant he had to ask for donations and that patrons couldn't walk outside with their cups.

But Quan remained optimistic about the evening.

"It's too early to tell," she said. "But it seems like the plans worked. We're pretty happy."